Great Depression in the United States

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 is often cited as the beginning of the Great Depression. It began on October 24, 1929, and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. Much of the stock market crash can be attributed to exuberance and false expectations. In the years leading up to 1929, the rising stock market prices had created vast sums of wealth in relation to amounts invested, in turn encouraging borrowing to further buy more stock. However, on October 24 (Black Thursday), share prices began to fall and panic selling caused prices to fall sharply. On October 29 (Black Tuesday), share prices fell by $14 billion in a single day, more than $30 billion in the week.[10] The value that evaporated that week was ten times more than the entire federal budget and more than all of what the U.S. had spent on World War I. By 1930 the value of shares had fallen by 90%.[11]

Since many banks had also invested their clients' savings in the stock market, these banks were forced to close when the stock market crashed. After the stock market crash and the bank closures, people were afraid of losing more money. Because of their fears of further economic challenge, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing and consuming. Thousands of individual investors who believed they could get rich by investing on margin lost everything they had. The stock market crash severely impacted the American economy.

A large contribution to the recession was the closure and suspension of thousands of banks across the country. Financial institutions failed for several reasons, including unregulated lending procedures, confidence in the Gold standard, consumer confidence in future economics, and agricultural defaults on outstanding loans. With these compounding issues the banking system struggled to keep up with the public's increasing demand for cash withdrawals. This overall decreased the money supply and forced the banks to result to short sale (real estate) and liquidation of existing loans.[7] In the race to liquidate assets the banking system began to fail on a wide scale. In November 1930 the first major banking crisis began with over 800 banks closing their doors by January 1931. By October 1931 over 2100 banks were suspended with the highest suspension rate recorded in the St. Louis Federal Reserve District, with 2 out of every 5 banks suspended.[12] The economy as a whole experienced a massive reduction in banking footholds across the country amounting to more than nine thousand closed banks by 1933.

People outside a closed bank after 1929 stock market crash.

The closures resulted in a massive withdrawal of deposits by millions of Americans estimated at near $6.8 billion (equivalent to about $115 billion in today's dollars 1931 $1=$17). During this time the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was not in place resulting in a loss of roughly $1.36 billion (or 20%) of the total $6.8 billion accounted for within the failed banks. These losses came directly from everyday individuals' savings, investments and bank accounts. As a result, GDP fell from the high seven-hundreds in 1929 to the low to mid six-hundreds in 1933 before seeing any recovery for the first time in nearly 4 years.[13] Federal leadership intervention is highly debated on its effectiveness and overall participation. The Federal Reserve Act could not effectively tackle the banking crisis as state bank and trust companies were not compelled to be a member, paper eligible discount member banks heavily restricted access to the Federal Reserve, power between the twelve Federal Reserve banks was decentralized and federal level leadership was ineffective, inexperienced, and weak.

Unregulated growth

Throughout the early 1900s banking regulations were extremely lax if not non-existent. The Currency Act of 1900 lowered the required capital of investors from 50,000 to 25,000 to create a national bank. As a result of this change nearly two thirds of the banks formed over the next ten years were quite small, averaging just above the 25,000 in required capital.[14] The number of banks would nearly double (number of banks divided by Real GDP) from 1890 to 1920 due to the lack of oversight and qualification when banking charters were being issued in the first two decades of the 1900s.[15]

The unregulated growth of small rural banking institutions can be partially attributed to the rising cost of agriculture especially in the Corn Belt and Cotton Belt. Throughout the corn and cotton belts real estate increases drove the demand for more local funding to continue to supply rising agricultural economics. The rural banking structures would supply the needed capital to meet the farm commodity market, however, this came with a price of reliability and low risk lending. Economic growth was promising from 1887 to 1920 with an average of 6 percent growth in [GDP]. In particular the participation in World War I drove a booming agricultural market that drove optimism at the consumer and lending level which, in turn, resulted in a more lax approach in the lending process. Over banked conditions existed which pressured struggling banks to increase their services (specifically to the agricultural customers) without any additional regulatory oversight or qualifications. This dilemma introduced several high risk and marginal business returns to the banking market.[16] Banking growth would continue through the first two decades well outside of previous trends disregarding the current economic and population standards. Banking profitability and loan standards begin to deteriorate as early as 1900 as a result.

Approaching dust storm near Stratford, Texas. April 18, 1935.

Crop failures beginning in 1921 began to impact this poorly regulated system, the expansion areas of corn and cotton suffered the largest due to the dust bowl era resulting in real estate value reductions. In addition, the year 1921 was the peak for banking expansion with roughly 31,000 banks in activity, however, with the failures at the agricultural level 505 banks would close between 1921 -1930 marking the largest banking system failure on record. Regulatory questions began to hit the debating table around banking qualifications as a result; discussions would continue into the [Great Depression] as not only were banks failing but some would disappear altogether with no rhyme or reason.[17] The panic of financial crisis would increase in the Great Depression due to the lack of confidence in the regulatory and recovery displayed during the 1920s, this ultimately drove a nation of doubts, uneasiness, and lack of consumer confidence in the banking system.

Huts and unemployed men in New York City, 1935

One visible effect of the depression was the advent of Hoovervilles, which were ramshackle assemblages on vacant lots of cardboard boxes, tents, and small rickety wooden sheds built by homeless people. Residents lived in the shacks and begged for food or went to soup kitchens. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee, to refer sardonically to President Herbert Hoover whose policies Michelson blamed for the depression.[20]

The government did not calculate unemployment rates in the 1930s. The most widely accepted estimates of unemployment rates for the Great Depression are those by Stanley Lebergott from the 1950s. He estimated that unemployment reached 24.9 percent in the worst days of 1933. Another commonly cited estimate is by Michael Darby in 1976. He put the unemployment rate at a peak of 22.5 percent in 1932.[21] Job losses were less severe among women, workers in non durable industries (such as food and clothing), services and sales workers, and those employed by the government. Unskilled inner city men had much higher unemployment rates. Age also played a factor. Young people had a hard time getting their first job. Men over the age of 45, if they lost their job, would rarely find another one because employers had their choice of younger men. Millions were hired in the Great Depression, but men with weaker credentials were not, and they fell into a long-term unemployment trap. The migration in the 1920s that brought millions of farmers and townspeople to the bigger cities suddenly reversed itself. Unemployment made the cities unattractive, and the network of kinfolk and more ample food supplies made it wise for many to go back.[22] City governments in 1930–31 tried to meet the depression by expanding public works projects, as President Herbert Hoover strongly encouraged. However, tax revenues were plunging, and the cities as well as private relief agencies were totally overwhelmed by 1931; no one was able to provide significant additional relief. People fell back on the cheapest possible relief, including soup kitchens providing free meals to anyone who showed up.[23] After 1933, new sales taxes and infusions of federal money helped relieve the fiscal distress of the cities, but the budgets did not fully recover until 1941.

The federal programs launched by Hoover and greatly expanded by President Roosevelt's New Deal used massive construction projects to try to jump start the economy and solve the unemployment crisis. The alphabet agencies CCC, FERA, WPA and PWA built and repaired the public infrastructure in dramatic fashion, but did little to foster the recovery of the private sector. FERA, CCC and especially WPA focused on providing unskilled jobs for long-term unemployed men.

The Democrats won easy landslide victories in 1932 and 1934, and an even bigger one in 1936; the hapless Republican Party seemed doomed. The Democrats capitalized on the magnetic appeal of Roosevelt to urban America. The key groups were low skilled and Catholics, Jews, and Blacks were especially impacted. The Democrats promised and delivered in terms of political recognition, labor union membership, and relief jobs. The cities' political machines were stronger than ever, for they mobilized their precinct workers to help families who needed help the most navigate the bureaucracy and get on relief. FDR won the vote of practically every demographic in 1936, including taxpayers, small business and the middle class. However, the Protestant middle class voters turned sharply against him after the recession of 1937–38 undermined repeated promises that recovery was at hand. Historically, local political machines were primarily interested in controlling their wards and citywide elections; the smaller the turnout on election day, the easier it was to control the system. However, for Roosevelt to win the presidency in 1936 and 1940, he needed to carry the electoral college and that meant he needed the largest possible majorities in the cities to overwhelm rural voters. The machines came through for him.[24] The 3.5 million voters on relief payrolls during the 1936 election cast 82% percent of their ballots for Roosevelt. The rapidly growing, energetic labor unions, chiefly based in the cities, turned out 80% for FDR, as did Irish, Italian and Jewish communities. In all, the nation's 106 cities over 100,000 population voted 70% for FDR in 1936, compared to his 59% elsewhere. Roosevelt worked very well with the big city machines, with the one exception of his old nemesis, Tammany Hall in Manhattan. There he supported the complicated coalition built around the nominal Republican Fiorello La Guardia, and based on Jewish and Italian voters mobilized by labor unions.[25]

In 1938, the Republicans made an unexpected comeback, and Roosevelt's efforts to purge the Democratic Party of his political opponents backfired badly. The conservative coalition of Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats took control of Congress, outvoted the urban liberals, and halted the expansion of New Deal ideas. Roosevelt survived in 1940 thanks to his margin in the Solid South and in the cities. In the North the cities over 100,000 gave Roosevelt 60% of their votes, while the rest of the North favored Willkie 52%–48%.[26]

With the start of full-scale war mobilization in the summer of 1940, the economies of the cities rebounded. Even before Pearl Harbor, Washington pumped massive investments into new factories and funded round-the-clock munitions production, guaranteeing a job to anyone who showed up at the factory gate.[27] The war brought a restoration of prosperity and hopeful expectations for the future across the nation. It had the greatest impact on the cities of the West Coast, especially Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.[28]

Economic historians led by Price Fishback have examined the impact of New Deal spending on improving health conditions in the 114 largest cities, 1929–1937. They estimated that every additional $153,000 in relief spending (in 1935 dollars, or $1.95 million in year 2000 dollars) was associated with a reduction of one infant death, one suicide, and 2.4 deaths from infectious disease.[29][30]

The Great Depression began in the United States of America and quickly spread worldwide.[31] It had severe effects in countries both rich and poor. Personal income, consumption, industrial output, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%, and in some countries rose as high as 33%.[32]

Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%.[33][34] Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as grain farming, mining and logging, as well as construction, suffered the most.[35]

Most economies started to recover by 1933–34. However, in the U.S. and some others the negative economic impact often lasted until the beginning of World War II, when war industries stimulated recovery.[36]

There is little agreement on what caused the Great Depression, and the topic has become highly politicized. At the time the great majority of economists around the world recommended the "orthodox" solution of cutting government spending and raising taxes. However, British economist John Maynard Keynes advocated large-scale government deficit spending to make up for the failure of private investment. No major nation adopted his policies in the 1930s.[37]

The stock market crash in 1929 not only affected the business community and the public's economic confidence, but also it led to the banking system soon after the turmoil. The boom of the US economy in the 1920s was based on high indebtedness, and the rupture of the debt chain caused by the collapse of the bank had produced widespread and far-reaching adverse effects. It is precisely because of the shaky banking system, the United States was using monetary policy to save the economy that had been severely constrained. The American economist Charles P. Kindleberger of long-term studying of the Great Depression pointed out that in the 1929, before and after the collapse of the stock market, the Fed lowered interest rates, tried to expand the money supply and eased the financial market tensions for several times, however they were not successful, the fundamental reason was that the relationship between various credit institutions and the community was in a drastic adjustment process, the normal supply channels for money supply were blocked.[43] Later, some economists argued that the Fed should do a large-scale opening market business at that time, but the essence of the statement was that the US government should be quick to implement measures to expand fiscal spending and fiscal deficits, whereas, the essence of this argument was that the US government should be promptly implemented to expand the fiscal spending and the fiscal deficits measures.

A homeless family of seven walks along U.S. 99, bound for San Diego, where the father hoped to enroll in welfare because he once lived there. They walked from Phoenix, Arizona, where they picked cotton, 1939.

By 1936, all the main economic indicators had regained the levels of the late 1920s, except for unemployment, which remained high. In 1937, the American economy unexpectedly fell, lasting through most of 1938. Production declined sharply, as did profits and employment. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938.[58] A contributing factor to the Recession of 1937 was a tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve doubled reserve requirements between August 1936 and May 1937[59] leading to a contraction in the money supply.

The Roosevelt Administration reacted by launching a rhetorical campaign against monopoly power, which was cast as the cause of the depression, and appointing Thurman Arnold to break up large trusts; Arnold was not effective, and the campaign ended once World War II began and corporate energies had to be directed to winning the war.[60] By 1939, the effects of the 1937 recession had disappeared. Employment in the private sector recovered to the level of the 1936 and continued to increase until the war came and manufacturing employment leaped from 11 million in 1940 to 18 million in 1943.[61]

Another response to the 1937 deepening of the Great Depression had more tangible results. Ignoring the pleas of the Treasury Department, Roosevelt embarked on an antidote to the depression, reluctantly abandoning his efforts to balance the budget and launching a $5 billion spending program in the spring of 1938 in an effort to increase mass purchasing power.

Total employment numbers in the United States from 1920 to 1940, excluding farms and WPA

Business-oriented observers explained the recession and recovery in very different terms from the Keynesian economists. They argued the New Deal had been very hostile to business expansion in 1935–37. They said it had encouraged massive strikes which had a negative impact on major industries and had threatened anti-trust attacks on big corporations. But all those threats diminished sharply after 1938. For example, the antitrust efforts fizzled out without major cases. The CIO and AFL unions started battling each other more than corporations, and tax policy became more favorable to long-term growth.[62]

On the other hand, according to economist Robert Higgs, when looking only at the supply of consumer goods, significant GDP growth only resumed in 1946. (Higgs does not estimate the value to consumers of collective goods like victory in war.[63]) To Keynesians, the war economy showed just how large the fiscal stimulus required to end the downturn of the Depression was, and it led, at the time, to fears that as soon as America demobilized, it would return to Depression conditions and industrial output would fall to its pre-war levels. The incorrect prediction by Alvin Hansen and other Keynesians that a new depression would start after the war failed to take account of pent-up consumer demand as a result of the Depression and World War.[64]

A woman working in a military aircraft factory in Fort Worth, Texas in 1942. Millions of American women found work in the defense industry during the Second World War.

The government began heavy military spending in 1940, and started drafting millions of young men that year.[65] By 1945, 17 million had entered service to their country, but that was not enough to absorb all the unemployed. During the war, the government subsidized wages through cost-plus contracts. Government contractors were paid in full for their costs, plus a certain percentage profit margin. That meant the more wages a person was paid the higher the company profits since the government would cover them plus a percentage.[66]

Using these cost-plus contracts in 1941–1943, factories hired hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers and trained them, at government expense. The military's own training programs concentrated on teaching technical skills involving machinery, engines, electronics and radio, preparing soldiers and sailors for the post-war economy.[67]

Structural walls were lowered dramatically during the war, especially informal policies against hiring women, minorities, and workers over 45 or under 18. In 1941, Executive Order 8802 banned racial discrimination in war-related employment, and set up the Fair Employment Practices Commission to enforce this. Strikes (except in coal mining) were sharply reduced as unions pushed their members to work harder. Tens of thousands of new factories and shipyards were built, with new bus services and nursery care for children making them more accessible. Wages soared for workers, making it quite expensive to sit at home. Employers retooled so that unskilled new workers could handle jobs that previously required skills that were now in short supply. The combination of all these factors drove unemployment below 2% in 1943.[68]

Roosevelt's declining popularity in 1938 was evident throughout the US in the business community, the press, and the Senate and House. Many were labeling the recession the "Roosevelt Recession". In late December 1938, Roosevelt looked to gain popularity with the American people, and try to regain the nation's confidence in the economy. His decision that December to name Harry Hopkins as Secretary of Commerce was an attempt to achieve the confidence he so badly needed. The appointment came as a surprise to most because of Hopkins' lack of business experience, but proved to be vastly important in shaping the years following the recession.[69]

Hopkins made it his mission to strengthen ties between the Roosevelt administration and the business community. While Roosevelt believed in complete reform through the New Deal, Hopkins took a more administrative position; he felt that recovery was imperative and that The New Deal would continue to hinder recovery. With support from Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr, popular support for recovery, rather than reform, swept the nation. By the end of 1938 reform had been struck down, as no new reform laws were passed.[69]

The economy in America was now beginning to show signs of recovery and the unemployment rate was lowering following the abysmal year of 1938. The biggest shift towards recovery, however, came with the decision of Germany to invade France in May 1940. After France had been defeated in June, the U.S. economy would skyrocket in the months following. France's defeat meant that Britain and other allies would look to the U.S. for large supplies of materials for the war.[70]

The need for these war materials created a huge spurt in production, thus leading to promising amount of employment in America. Moreover, Britain chose to pay for their materials in gold. This stimulated the gold inflow and raised the monetary base, which in turn, stimulated the American economy to its highest point since the summer of 1929 when the depression began.[70]

By the end of 1941, before American entry into the war, defense spending and military mobilization had started one of the greatest booms in American history thus ending the last traces of unemployment.[70]

Effects of depression in the U.S.:[71]

• 13 million people became unemployed. In 1932, 34 million people belonged to families with no regular full-time wage earner.[72]
• Industrial production fell by nearly 45% between 1929 and 1932.
• Home-building dropped by 80% between the years 1929 and 1932.
• In the 1920s, the banking system in the U.S. was about $50 billion, which was about 50% of GDP.[73]
• From 1929 to 1932, about 5,000 banks went out of business.
• By 1933, 11,000 of US 25,000 banks had failed.[74]
• Between 1929 and 1933, U.S. GDP fell around 30%; the stock market lost almost 90% of its value.[75]
• In 1929, the unemployment rate averaged 3%.[76]
• In Cleveland, the unemployment rate was 50%; in Toledo, Ohio, 80%.[72]
• One Soviet trading corporation in New York averaged 350 applications a day from Americans seeking jobs in the Soviet Union.[77]
• Over one million families lost their farms between 1930 and 1934.[72]
• Corporate profits dropped from $10 billion in 1929 to $1 billion in 1932.[72]
• Between 1929 and 1932, the income of the average American family was reduced by 40%.[78]
• Nine million savings accounts were wiped out between 1930 and 1933.[72]
• 273,000 families were evicted from their homes in 1932.[72]
• There were two million homeless people migrating around the country.[72]
• Over 60% of Americans were categorized as poor by the federal government in 1933.[72]
• In the last prosperous year (1929), there were 279,678 immigrants recorded, but in 1933 only 23,068 came to the U.S.[79][80]
• In the early 1930s, more people emigrated from the United States than immigrated to it.[81]
• With little economic activity there was scant demand for new coinage. No nickels or dimes were minted in 1932–33, no quarter dollars in 1931 or 1933, no half dollars from 1930 to 1932, and no silver dollars in the years 1929–33.
• In 1932 deflation was 10.7 percent and real interest rate was 11.49 percent.[82]
• The U.S. government sponsored a Mexican Repatriation program which was intended to encourage people to voluntarily move to Mexico, but thousands, including many U.S. citizens, were deported against their will. Altogether about 400,000 Mexicans were repatriated.[83]
• New York social workers reported that 25% of all schoolchildren were malnourished. In the mining counties of West Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, the proportion of malnourished children was perhaps as high as 90%.[72]
• Many people became ill with diseases such as tuberculosis (TB).[72]
• The 1930 U.S. Census determined the U.S. population to be 122,775,046. About 40% of the population was under 20 years old.[84]
• Suicide rates increased, however life expectancy increased from about 57 years in 1929 to 63 in 1933.[85]

General:

• List of recessions in the United States

• "Banking Panics (1930–1933)." Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. Encyclopedia.com. 13 Jun. 2017<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
• Bernanke, Ben. Essays on the Great Depression (Princeton University Press, 2000) (Chapter One – "The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression" online)
• Best, Gary Dean. Pride, Prejudice, and Politics: Roosevelt Versus Recovery, 1933–1938 (1991) ISBN 0-275-93524-8
• Best, Gary Dean. The Nickel and Dime Decade: American Popular Culture during the 1930s. (1993) online edition
• Bindas, Kenneth J. Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930–1941 (UP of Kansas, 2017). 277 pp.
• Blumberg, Barbara. The New Deal and the Unemployed: The View from New York City (1977).
• Bordo, Michael D., Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, eds., The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (1998). Advanced economic history.
• Bremer, William W. "Along the American Way: The New Deal's Work Relief Programs for the Unemployed." Journal of American History 62 (December 1975): 636–652 online
• Cannadine, David (2007). Mellon: An American Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 395–469. ISBN 978-0679450320.
• Chandler, Lester. America's Greatest Depression (1970). overview by economic historian.
• Cravens, Hamilton. Great Depression: People and Perspectives (2009), social history excerpt and text search
• Dickstein, Morris. Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (2009) excerpt and text search
• Field, Alexander J. A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth (Yale University Press; 2011) 387 pages; argues that technological innovations in the 1930s laid the foundation for economic success in World War II and postwar
• Friedman, Milton and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (1963) ISBN 0-691-04147-4 classic monetarist explanation; highly statistical
  • Friedman, Milton and Anna J. Schwartz, The Great Contraction 1929–1933 (New Edition, 2008), chapter from A Monetary History covering Great Contraction
• Fuller, Robert Lynn, "Phantom of Fear" The Banking Panic of 1933 (2012)
• Graham, John R.; Hazarika, Sonali & Narasimhan, Krishnamoorthy. "Financial Distress in the Great Depression" (2011) SSRN link to paper
• Grant, Michael Johnston. Down and Out on the Family Farm: Rural Rehabilitation in the Great Plains, 1929–1945 (2002)
• Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn. To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression (2009) excerpt and text search
• Greenspan, Alan; Wooldridge, Adrian (2018). Capitalism in America: A History. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 220–272. ISBN 978-0735222441.
• Hapke, Laura. Daughters of the Great Depression: Women, Work, and Fiction in the American 1930s (1997)
• Himmelberg, Robert F. ed The Great Depression and the New Deal (2001), short overview
• Howard, Donald S. The WPA and Federal Relief Policy (1943)
• Jensen, Richard J., "The Causes and Cures of Unemployment in the Great Depression", Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1989) 19(553–83) online
• Kennedy, David. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1999), wide-ranging survey by leading scholar; online edition
• Klein, Maury. Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929 (2001) by economic historian
• Kubik, Paul J. "Federal Reserve Policy during the Great Depression: The Impact of Interwar Attitudes regarding Consumption and Consumer Credit" Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 30, 1996
• McElvaine Robert S. The Great Depression 2nd ed (1993) social history
• Mitchell, Broadus. Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal, 1929–1941 (1964), overview of economic history
• Morris, Charles R. A Rabble of Dead Money: The Great Crash and the Global Depression: 1929–1939 (PublicAffairs, 2017), 389 pp. online review
• Richardson, Gary. "Banking Panics of 1930-31." Federal Reserve History. N.p., 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 June 2017.
• Rauchway, Eric. The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction (2008) excerpt and text search
• Roose, Kenneth D. "The Recession of 1937–38" Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jun., 1948), pp. 239–248 in JSTOR
• Rose, Nancy. The WPA and Public Employment in the Great Depression (2009)
• Rosen, Elliot A. Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Economics of Recovery (2005) ISBN 0-8139-2368-9
• Rothbard, Murray N. America's Great Depression (1963)
• Saloutos, Theodore. The American Farmer and the New Deal (1982)
• Singleton, Jeff. The American Dole: Unemployment Relief and the Welfare State in the Great Depression (2000)
• Sitkoff, Harvard. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade (2008)
• Sitkoff, Harvard, ed. Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated (1985), liberal perspective
• Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression (2002) ISBN 1-56663-472-5 economist blames Federal Reserve and gold standard
• Smith, Jason Scott. Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933–1956 (2005).
• Sternsher, Bernard, ed., Hitting Home: The Great Depression in Town and Country (1970), readings on local history
• Szostak, Rick. Technological Innovation and the Great Depression (1995)
• Temin, Peter. Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? (1976)
• Tindall, George B. The Emergence of the New South, 1915–1945 (1967). History of entire region by leading scholar
• Trout, Charles H. Boston, the Great Depression, and the New Deal (1977)
• Uys, Errol Lincoln. Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression (Routledge, 2003) ISBN 0-415-94575-5 author's site
• Warren, Harris Gaylord. Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (1959).
• Watkins, T. H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. (2009).
• Wecter, Dixon. The Age of the Great Depression, 1929–1941 (1948)
• Wicker, Elmus. The Banking Panics of the Great Depression 1996
• White, Eugene N. "The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929 Revisited". The Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring, 1990), pp. 67–83, evaluates different theories in JSTOR
• Young, William H., and Nancy K. Young. The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia (2 vol. 2007)